It’s all fine for them. They wear ear protection.

Worker with leaf-blower. Photo by Hector Alejandro, Wikimedia

The neighborhoods now have roared to life with motorized blowers (see the photo) and hedge clippers. Many workers who use them wear ear protection. It’s all fine for them, but what about the second-hand noise, the distractions everyone around these must accept? Frequent exposure to loud noise like this, over a period of time, damages hearing. Occasional encounters won’t damage hearing. But the damage to bystanders is in another realm. As they whine their ways around vegetation, the machines make noise that agitates and creates stress, which is another kind of health damage.

It’s time for a revival: rakes. Hand clippers. Or, a new day: mufflers.

Motorized garden equipment can pollute the air just as many lawn mowers do. See this article.

This article shows some savvy enforcement in Brookline, Massachusetts.